Galaxy discs regulate the growth of supermassive black holes

ABSTRACT We examine the relationship between the mass of present-day central supermassive black holes (SMBHs, $M_{\rm BH}$) and the stellar mass ($M_\star$) and halo mass ($M_{200}$) of their host galaxies in the EAGLE simulation, and find that scatter about these relations correlates with both halo structure and galaxy morphology. EAGLE reproduces the observed $M_{\rm BH}{\!-\!}M_\star$ relation, including (qualitatively) its dependence on morphology: at fixed $M_\star$, disc-dominated galaxies host less massive SMBHs than ellipticals. We show that $M_{\rm BH}$ correlates with $M_{200}$, as expected if SMBHs are regulated by processes acting on the scale of the host dark matter halo, but exhibits a tighter correlation with the halo binding energy ($E_{\rm bind}$), signalling that this quantity, which encodes information about both halo mass and halo structure, is more fundamental to $M_{\rm BH}$. As with $M_{\rm BH}{\!-\!}M_\star$, scatter about the $M_{\rm BH}{\!-\!}E_{\rm bind}$ relation is strongly correlated with morphology. Gas in the central few parsecs of galaxies with present-day discs retains strong rotational support as the galaxy grows, inhibiting inward transport and precluding periods of rapid SMBH growth by gas accretion. In galaxies destined to be present-day ellipticals, however, this rotational support is disrupted, enabling gas to be funnelled on to the central SMBH, triggering rapid growth. Evolution of the mass fraction of stars formed ex-situ indicates that this disruption is caused by galaxy–galaxy interactions and mergers. Our findings corroborate the conclusion of recent studies, based on controlled simulations of an ${\sim}L^\star$ galaxy, that prolonged secular galaxy evolution inhibits central SMBH growth.